After over a year of an impassioned court debate, the state and ITIM – The Jewish Life Information Center have agreed on a mechanism set to ensure converts are registered for marriage by city rabbis in a way that is nearly identical to the procedure other Israeli Jews go through.

…earlier this week the state announced that there would be a limit of two weeks for passing on the request from the initial registrar to the next, and another two-week limit to have the wedding certificate approved after the wedding.

Founder and head of ITIM Rabbi Seth Farber:

"From now on, converts will again be able to feel as an inseparable part of the Jewish people, without any inferiority.”

Yet at the same time, Farber stressed that “we still must be careful that such instances do not recur. ITIM will have to be the watchdog to make sure that this arrangement is implemented.”

"I am a little skeptical whether the local rabbis will follow as directed because they have already demonstrated that they have no respect for the Chief Rabbinate," Rabbi Seth Farber, founder and director of ITIM, told JTA.

Farber said ITIM is set to respond positively to the state's offer on May 8 -- the deadline for the organization to respond.

He said the organization will not withdraw the complaint, only freeze it, giving the Chief Rabbinate one month to implement the new system and six months to see how it works. If it is not successful, the group can unfreeze the complaint.

Fanny Smith underwent an Orthodox conversion to Judaism in January 2001 under the supervision of Rabbi Herschel Solnica, with the assistance of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens.

...The Smiths married in a religious ceremony a short time after Fanny converted and have been living an observant Orthodox life in the Flatbush community, where two of their three young children attend Jewish day school. Last year, when they began preparing to return to Israel, they expected no problem: Israel’s Law of Return gives Jews the right to immigrate.

So Fanny and Bruce were in shock when a letter arrived from the Interior Ministry last August denying her application for aliyah. Fanny’s conversion had been ruled invalid, and the ministry did not regard her as Jewish.

Why should everyone be considered guilty until proven innocent? Why should the burden of “proof of Jewishness” be placed on young couples who seek to be married in Israel?

The halacha – until recently – never addresses how one can prove he or she is Jewish. In fact, the Shulchan Aruch is very clear that we trust someone who comes forward and says they are Jewish, unless they have a rancorous personality.

By Don Waxmanwww.shma.comSh'ma - A Journal of Jewish Responsibility: Inside Israel's History May 2011

The Status Quo Agreement that David Ben-Gurion (then the leader of the Jewish Agency in Palestine) reached with the Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party sketched out the basic relationship between the future state and the Jewish religion.

It promised that the Jewish Sabbath would be the official day of rest; that the state would serve only kosher food in its institutions; and that the Orthodox religious establishment would have exclusive authority over all Jewish marriages, divorces, and burials.

Sixty-three years after the signing of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the New Israel Fund invites you to celebrate the social justice values enshrined in that document.

In partnership with Hazon, Repair the World, and Pursue we will host members of the newly-launched Siach network, an international network of Jewish social justice and environmental professionals, and explore the important work progressive activists are doing in Israel and the U.S.

Emceed by Ami Dar, founder of Idealist.org, followed by in-depth learning with:

MK Yithak “Buji” Herzog (Labor) articulated a clear position for the State of Israel that put religious pluralism front and center. He posited that no single group holds a monopoly on Jewish tradition and on truth.

Minister Miki Eitan (Likud) also articulated a position. Sadly, his approach was that Israel, as both a Jewish and a democratic state, must preserve THE true religious traditions. His mistake was in thinking that the Orthodoxy he votes to fund (while denying funding to the non-Orthodox streams) holds some sort of monopoly on truth.

The Diaspora still looks at Yom Ha’atzmaut as the celebration of a political state rather than a celebration of Israel as a platform for the collective action of the Jewish people and an opportunity for the Jewish people to impact the world as we’ve not been able to do over the course of the past thousands of years. Yom Ha’atzmaut could be seen as a way to celebrate the independence of the Jewish people to act as a people in the world.

Close to 50,000 students in haredi schools will be studying even though the State declared Independence Day as a national holiday, a day even the Arab sector's schools and institutions are closed.

The criticism isn't aimed at Shas' Ma'ayan HaChinuch HaTorani haredi schools which will not hold classes on Independence Day.

The Director of Hiddush – Freedom of Religion for Israel, Rabbi Uri Regev, called on the Education Ministry to make the necessity of a national holiday clear to the haredi education institutions and stop funding to those institutions which do not respect the national holiday.

The chief rabbi yesterday sent a letter to the ultra-Orthodox yeshivas, asking them not to sit around idly on the Memorial Day for the fallen IDF soldiers, and to consecrate a special study session in their memory.

"Our beloved IDF soldiers who fell in the wars are seen as martyrs," he wrote. "Their holiness and privilege are great, we all owe them our gratitude, should lower our head, contribute our time for them."

Metzger called on the yeshiva students to study Mishnah (oral Jewish laws ) chapters on Memorial Day and "consecrate your studies throughout that day for the transcendence of their souls."

Avi Be'eri's life story could have easily become a successful soap opera. It started with the death of his parents in Guinea, continued with slave traders smuggling him into Israel and through to the IDF officers course, which he is due to complete on Tuesday.

My next challenge is to convert, marry and start a family. I want to go to university...

The Jerusalem-based Shalem Center think tank got a step closer to realizing its dream of establishing Israel’s first liberal arts college, thanks to a $12.5 million [matching] grant from the Tikva Fund, the center announced on Tuesday.

Orit Yaakobi’s film, The Third Generation, is about a 30-year-old woman named Galia who is irritated by her mother and grandmother who constantly nag her about getting married. In an attempt to solve her “problem,” they force her to participate in religious and superstitious customs.

The time has come for the largest Jewish sector in Israel, the secular majority, to discard the feelings of inferiority vis-a-vis the various religious sectors.

Alongside the fight against attempts at an ultra-Orthodox takeover of our agenda (and not only on questions of how we marry, what we eat and how we are buried), seder night is an appropriate opportunity to remind ourselves and to tell our children that Passover is the festival of freedom and that the state of Israel belongs to and is for all Jews.

Over the past twenty years or so, with a particular boost after the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin, there has been a small but growing tendency for Israelis who define themselves as "secular" to seek ways to reconnect with their roots in Jewish texts and traditions.

In the past few days an echo has been reverberating from the home of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Shas party.

It is saying that the rabbi will soon invite Aryeh Deri and make him an offer he can't refuse: second place on the Shas list for the next Knesset, immediately after Eli Yishai and before Housing Minister Ariel Atias.

“Doctors are against smoking; they say it causes lung cancer. Whoever can refrain from it, all the better; he should take every effort to keep away from it,” the senior Sephardi adjudicator said in his Saturday night televised sermon, which dealt with the laws of Jewish holidays.

The Haredi world has undergone a change in recent years regarding when it is appropriate to inform someone of a medical condition.

While in the past, leading rabbis would say that if a condition was under control, there was not necessarily a need to inform the other side, the leading authorities today, in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, are more inclined to encourage people to be totally up-front – though a rabbi approached with a specific case would rule according to the circumstances at hand.

A decline is being recorded in the number of Jews in mixed cities, while the number of Arabs is on the rise, according to a study conducted ahead of the Ramla Conference: Between Israel and the Nations.

Dr. Eliezer Haddad is a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute and an instructor of Bible and Jewish Philosophy at Lifshitz College and Herzog College.

The "Rabbis' Letter", signed by dozens of community rabbis in Israel in December 2010, asserts that Jewish law forbids the rental and sale of homes in Israel to non-Jews.

Is the rental of property to non-Jews indeed forbidden by halakha? What is the status of non-Jews living as a minority among Jews? Are the Biblical prohibitions cited in the Rabbis' Letter applicable to Arabs in Israel today?

The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office informed Haifa’s Chief Rabbi She’ar- Yashuv Cohen on Sunday that they were closing the file against him, after the rabbi announced that he would cease from holding a public position.

The operation was planned by Bratslav Hasidim - students of Rabbi Eliezer Berland from Jerusalem - and right-wing activists from an organization called Garin He'arim Ha'ivriot, which seeks an Israeli return to Nablus, Jericho and the section of Hebron under Palestinian control.

It is permissible under Israeli law to proselytize except in the case where a person is offered a monetary incentive to change his or her religion.

A financial incentive has never been a part of LDS missionary practice, but Mormons in Israel do not engage in any kind of proselytizing.

“Only the students and faculty have to actually sign the form,” Hansen said, “but all members who live here permanently or temporarily, or are even visiting, have been asked by Church Headquarters to abide by what is written in the agreement.”

Working for the rights of Russian speaking immigrants to convert to Judaism without coercing them to ultra-Orthodoxy makes Israel a home for all Jews. And removing legal barriers keeping non-Orthodox communities from building their religious communities makes Israel a more authentic Jewish state.

Consider the case of Yossi Fackenheim, the son of the late Jewish philosopher and Holocaust survivor Emil Fackenheim who was converted at the age of two before an Orthodox beit din in Montreal.

At the age of 29, he was told by the Jerusalem rabbinic court that he is not Jewish because he does not strictly observe the mitzvot. If this is how people with Orthodox conversions in Israel are treated, you can imagine what happens to Reform and Conservative converts.”

Suffice it to say that Rabbi Jacobs’ dedication to Medinat Yisrael and Am Yisrael is unquestioned by this group, and by the thousands of congregants he has instilled over the years with the same deep love of Israel that he himself possesses.

His views represent a significant portion of the American pro-Israel community and are surely representative of the Movement he has been selected to lead.

Rabbi Daniel Allen, executive director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, told JTA that he could not remember a similar public outcry against the appointment of a movement leader focusing on the individual’s position on Israel.

Dana Evan Kaplan is rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel in Albany, Ga. He is the author of “American Reform Judaism: An Introduction” (Rutgers University Press).

Rabbi Jacobs must move the focus away from a divisive debate over internal Israeli policy and get us back on track, doing what he was hired to do: revitalize the movement. And we, Reform Jews, need to stop fighting among ourselves and address the urgent challenges before us.

And the highly critical views among some students is causing at least several American Jewish leaders in the liberal movements to question the value of the year-in-Israel programs in their current form.

“The central objective of the program is to build a Zionist mindset,” said Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue (Reform) in Manhattan. “Otherwise it’s a wasted opportunity.”

He said if a significant number of students are disenchanted with Israel, the programs may be “deeply flawed” and should be reviewed.

When Israeli government officials write off diaspora communities as doomed to disappear; when Israel’s rabbinic establishment denies the legitimacy of the Judaism I practice and discriminates against the Jews in Israel who affiliate and practice as I do, I feel still greater urgency to talk through our differences.

I am convinced we can be partners in putting “facts on the ground” that help fulfill the covenant and make Israel a state that palpably belongs to all of us.

We join him, and other voices, in calling for deeper and more open conversations between diaspora and Israeli Jews and within our own community.

Our communal goal should be to be able to critique Israeli policies without being labeled disloyal, and to plant the seeds of Clal Yisrael (Jewish peoplehood) in our young people, long before they visit and confront the reality of Israel.

For now, hearing each other is far more important than chastising each other.

Alisa Kurshan is senior vice president for strategic planning and organizational resources at UJA-Federation of New York.

Perhaps less well known to New Yorkers, a similar phenomenon in Israel has spawned a range of organizations (many of which UJA-Federation also supports, including Bina, Tevel B’Tzedek, Bema’agalei Tzedek).

Young Israelis seek to draw from Jewish sources, values, and culture to address contemporary challenges of social justice and environmental stewardship. They seek to explore their Jewish identity through hands-on social action.

Stuart Schoffman, a columnist and translator, is a fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and editor of Havruta: A Journal of Jewish Conversation.

The creation of Israel as an independent state revised the image and raised the self-confidence of Jews everywhere.

As a proud Israeli, I would argue that the simultaneous phenomena of Israel as a strong sovereign nation and the unprecedented success of the American Jewish community are anything but a coincidence. Simply put: Israel matters.

The Summer 2011 issue of Havruta: A Journal of Jewish Conversation, to be published online and in print, will be dedicated to the Shalom Hartman Institute Engaging Israel project.

The goal of this exciting new initiative is to respond to growing feelings of disenchantment with and disinterest in Israel among an increasing number of Jews worldwide, by creating a new narrative regarding the significance of Israel for Jewish life.

I hope that a national group of thirty Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbis will have an opportunity to address the issue directly with Israeli officials with whom we will meet in just a few weeks.

The Israeli government is bringing ten rabbis from each of the major movements to Israel, including three from Atlanta, for a pilot program entitled, “Rabbis Engaging With Israel.”

The stated purpose of the program is to take rabbis who are already engaged with Israel and make them more effective voices within their congregations and communities. But it is important for us to share our concerns with the Israeli officials with whom we will meet.

Taglit-Birthright is also using the special month to raise awareness of its new goal of sending 51,000 Jewish participants to Israel each year. If the organization hits its mark by 2013, it will have succeeded in providing one in every two young North American Jews with a free trip to Israel.

Michael Steinhardt couldn’t resist a jab at the Establishment, asserting that Birthright represents a stark contrast to the rest of Jewish institutional life, which he described as “archaic and mundane.”

“A principle goal of the program is to create a bridge and a deeper sense of Jewish identity between Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora — specifically Minneapolis,” explained Eilat Harel, director of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation’s Israel Center.

Recruitment directors from a dozen major U.S. corporations were brought to Israel this week to convince Israeli firms to take on interns, specifically Jewish ones from abroad. Internship programs are common in the U.S., but are a rarity here.

Olga Gershenson is Associate Professor of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. To learn more about her work, see www.people.umass.edu/olga/.

In a world that is increasingly globalised, decentralised, and diasporic, traditional national boundaries are blurred. Post-Soviet immigrants, known in Israeli parlance as ‘Russians’ are a case in point.

These immigrants, who often maintain multiple passports, homes, and languages, make us re-think the meaning of homeland and exile: they are part of a traditional Jewish diaspora and of a new Russian diaspora.

This mass migration affected both Israeli and Russian cultures. One site where these changes can be clearly identified is cinema:

Dr. Mali Eizenberg of the Massuah Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, who formulates curricula for female Haredi educators and has been involved in the new project, says the facility's establishment will underscore what she calls "the Haredi narrative": the spiritual life of Orthodox communities at the time of the Holocaust.

Sincere dialogue between Yad Vashem and the leadership of haredi Jewry, and their representatives over the years, has resulted in productive educational activity with the Bais Yaakov and other haredi educational systems, and in genuine partnerships with Agudath Israel of America and the Belz community in Israel, to name just a few.

Last week the Jewish Community of Austria filed a lawsuit in Israel against the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem, demanding it hand over a collection of documents detailing Jewish life in Central Europe between the 17th and 20th centuries.

Despite leading rabbis' efforts to reschedule the holiday for fear of desecrating the Sabbath, nothing will prevent the traditional bonfire-lighting and the pilgrimage to Mount Meron as part of the Lag Ba'omer celebrations in two weeks' time.

An interdenominational delegation from Israel will meet with a prominent Muslim preacher in Istanbul on Wednesday to discuss ways to enhance understanding between the faiths.

A rabbi, a Catholic priest, a Druse kadi and a Bedouin sheikh will spend three days with Adnan Oktar, known also as Harun Yahya, a philosopher and theologian with a large following in the Muslim world.

One of the delegates, Rabbi Yeshayahu Hollander of Petah Tikva, is an associate justice on the Jerusalem Rabbinic Court for Issues of Non-Jews.

The Tourism Ministry will invest NIS 12 million over the next four years in improving the tourist infrastructure in Nazareth, as part of efforts to boost the cultural and leisure offerings in the Galilee city.

Nazareth, a magnet for Christian tourists and the largest Arab city in the country, is visited by more than 40 percent of foreign tourists.

Like Zonga, dozens of Sudanese in Israel, a majority of whom are refugees and asylum seekers, are abandoning Islam in favor of Christianity.

...Zonga now goes to a Sudanese church, a small second-floor room with rows of fold-up chairs, attended by Christians from the south of Sudan. He feels more at peace as a Christian, he says, than he ever did as a Muslim. He often sits with other Darfuri converts, many of whom speak the language of his tribe, the Fur, discussing the Bible and its teachings.

Rabbi Efraim Holtzberg, assistant to the Rabbi of Jerusalem’s Jewish quarter, called on the Jerusalem Municipality to end its cooperation with Christian groups, which will include a presentation of an opera by Verdi which deals with the crusades in Jerusalem.

On Friday evening, April 29, 2011, Dov Elboim hosted Father David Neuhaus, Latin Patriarchal Vicar for Hebrew speaking Catholics in Israel, on his talk show, "Welcoming Shabbat," a weekly program that presents the Sabbath Torah portion in dialogue with an invited guest.

The program was dedicated to the portion of the week that includes Leviticus 19 and 20. Dov Elboim asked Father David a series of questions not only about his understanding of the theme of holiness that is at the heart of the text, but also about Hebrew-speaking Catholics in Israel.

In the Israeli context, some view the academic dispute as being part of an ongoing political debate concerned with the modern Jewish people's historic ties to the narrow strip of land lying between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. More broadly, the controversy is part of an almost two-century-long dispute over the historical validity of broad sections of the Holy Scriptures.

...For decades the dispute over the status of biblical history and the Kingdom of David was influenced by efforts to consolidate or refute the Jews’ historical affiliation with the land on which the State of Israel and, more particularly, Jerusalem stand.